What Can SFA Do? An Explanation of 5 Essential Functions (With Case Studies)

While SFA Offers Many Functions, It Can Be Difficult to Grasp What It Actually Does

Sales activities involve a wide variety of tasks. To support and streamline these complex operations, SFA systems are packed with numerous features.

Although many functions are introduced on SFA tool websites and in brochures, while users may feel that the tool could be useful for various purposes, we often hear feedback that "there are so many features that it is difficult to understand what the tool can actually do or how it can be utilized within our own company."

In such cases, let us focus on the following five core functions:

1. Customer Management
2. Opportunity Management
3. Sales Negotiation Management
4. Budget vs. Actual Management
5. Activity Support

SFA functions can generally be categorized into the five areas above, with more granular features linked to each. While specific features vary by SFA tool, understanding these basic functions will make the system much easier to comprehend.

SFA Function 1: Customer Management

Function Overview

This function manages information regarding target customers (prospects).

In addition to basic information typically found on business cards—such as the contact person's name, company name, address, and phone number—you can view sales-related information per customer, including past contact history and the progress of sales negotiations.

This function is frequently used not only by the sales department but also in collaboration with other departments such as marketing and customer support.

Benefits and Considerations of SFA Implementation

By implementing an SFA to centralize customer information, you can achieve the following benefits:

• Share customer information across the entire team and department.
• Facilitate easier handovers when sales representatives are transferred or resign.
• Prevent risks by sharing information about problematic customers, such as those with a history of disputes.

It is essential to reach a state where "everything you need to know about a customer can be found here."

To improve the accuracy of managed customer data, companies often integrate SFA with business card management tools or corporate databases, or link it with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that focuses on managing existing customer information.

SFA Function 2: Opportunity Management

Function Overview

This function tracks and manages the status of sales opportunities.

Opportunity management visualizes the following for each product, customer, and representative:

• Progress Within the Sales Process
• Probability of Closing
• Estimated Revenue
• Expected Closing Date

Benefits and Considerations of SFA Implementation

By using an SFA for opportunity management, management can view opportunities quantitatively as data, making it easier to grasp the status of the entire team.

This allows for the identification of "latest opportunities," "high-probability opportunities," "neglected opportunities," and "reasons for lost deals," enabling:

• Approaching High-Potential Customers
• Prioritizing Opportunities to Pursue
• Uncovering Buried Customer Leads

This allows for efficient instructions to be given to sales representatives.

The key to utilizing opportunity management functions is to clarify and standardize the sales process. If you proceed with implementation while the sales process remains ambiguous, the SFA may not lead to improved efficiency.

By visualizing the sales process and analyzing the progress of opportunities, you can identify where the bottlenecks in your sales flow are and implement improvements.

SFA Function 3: Sales Negotiation Management

Function Overview

This function tracks and manages the status of sales negotiations.

Negotiation management records information about the counterparty, the sales representative, the content of the discussion, materials used, and the results of the meeting to:

• Track the Progress of Negotiations
• Share the Content of Discussions
• Analyze Negotiation Outcomes

By utilizing the negotiation management function, you can analyze factors such as "which sales representative is successful in converting negotiations into opportunities" or "what conditions lead to higher conversion rates," and share these insights across the entire sales department.

Benefits and Considerations of SFA Implementation

Similar to opportunity management, using an SFA allows you to extract data from various perspectives—such as customer, sales representative, materials used, and the day or time of the meeting—making analysis easier.

Standardizing negotiations that were previously left to top-performing sales staff and sharing that information can help elevate the performance of the entire team, improve business results, and reduce the risks associated with knowledge being siloed within individuals.

Also, as with opportunity management, clarifying and standardizing the sales process is indispensable.

SFA Function 4: Budget vs. Actual Management

Function Overview

This function manages the budgets and actual performance of the sales department.

It allows you to track and analyze figures such as:

• Sales Forecasts
• Actual Sales Results
• Goal Achievement Rates

These are tracked by sales process or representative and used for overall departmental improvement and management decision-making.

Benefits and Considerations of SFA Implementation

Companies that previously relied on "intuition" or "experience" for forecasting, budgeting, and goal setting can use an SFA to calculate appropriate budgets and numerical targets based on accumulated data.

Furthermore, because achievement rates against these targets can be aggregated quickly, the PDCA cycle for sales activities can be executed with greater speed.

SFA tools are also equipped with robust reporting features that can output data in easy-to-understand graphs and charts, making this an essential function for streamlining management tasks.

While you can create reports filtered by various conditions, such as daily, weekly, or monthly periods, it is important to decide which reports to use with a clear purpose—such as improving sales efficiency or addressing specific operational issues—rather than simply outputting reports aimlessly.

SFA Function 5: Sales Activity Support

All the functions introduced in the previous four sections are realized when sales representatives accurately input their daily sales activities as data.

However, there are many cases where input stalls because sales representatives find it troublesome, meaningless, or feel they are being forced to do it by management. One reason for this is that SFA is often perceived as a tool solely for the management side to perform "Sales Management."

If the cooperation of field sales staff cannot be obtained, the utilization of SFA will come to a halt.

This is where the importance of Sales Activity Support functions comes in.

In addition to their daily sales activities, sales representatives are expected to perform tasks such as:

• Inputting Customer Data
• Inputting Sales Data Such as Deals and Negotiations
• Managing Schedules
• Posting Daily Reports

using the SFA.

Therefore, it is important to utilize Sales Activity Support functions that reduce the operational burden on sales representatives, ensuring that information is entered appropriately.

Key points include:

• User-Friendly Input Screens
• Ease of Input From Mobile Devices Such as Smartphones
• Comprehensive Input Support Features
• Automatic Posting Functions

Sales Activity Support is a crucial function for ensuring that SFA is used as a tool that makes sales representatives feel that "introducing SFA has made my work easier" and "there are personal benefits for me," rather than just being a tool for management.

Furthermore, SFA allows for the management of activities such as the number of appointments, visits, negotiations, and conversion rates of sales representatives. By grasping the strengths, weaknesses, and behavioral challenges of representatives through data, managers can more easily provide appropriate guidance and training.

Customer Case Studies That Improved SFA Implementation Results

By integrating SFA with the SFA linkage tool uSonar, it is possible to maximize the results of your implementation.

Case Study: Business Breakthrough, Inc.

Challenges Before Implementing uSonar

• Standardizing Fragmented Business Processes
• Building an Integrated System to Centralize Customer Information

Reasons for Choosing uSonar

• Proven Track Record of Integration With Salesforce
• Comprehensive Coverage Down to Branch Offices and Business Sites, With Unparalleled Data Quality and Quantity

Results Achieved

• New Business Negotiations Increased by 120%
• Direct Mail Response Rate Doubled
• Cross-Departmental Utilization, Including Accounting and General Affairs, Has Become Established

Details of the case study can be found here

Case Study: Demae-can Co., Ltd.

Challenges Before Implementing uSonar

• Issues with the comprehensiveness and reliability of store information necessary for developing sales strategies

Reasons for Choosing uSonar

• Ability to integrate with Salesforce and utilize it for promoting DX
• High reliability of information with over 800,000 restaurant records registered

Results Achieved

• Enabled the development of precise sales strategies, leading to efficient sales activities
• Reduced man-hours for store information maintenance and updates by 60%, saving approximately 17 million yen annually
• Streamlined back-office operations such as simplified anti-social force checks

Details of the case study can be found here

Summary

The necessary functions, the functions that should be prioritized, and the functions that should be used first vary depending on the situation and sales processes of the company or sales department implementing the system.

However, the five functions introduced here are all essential, foundational features for the successful utilization of SFA.

While SFA offers many sales support functions, if you find it difficult to know where to start due to the sheer number of features, why not focus on the five functions introduced in this article?

By correctly understanding "what can be done with SFA," let's work toward improving sales efficiency and business performance using SFA tools.